Joe Biden Has What It Takes, But That Doesn't Mean He'll Run in 2020

Joe Biden was the one that got away. In the eyes of many, the vice-president would have been a better 2016 candidate for the Democratic party than Hillary Clinton. The rumors swirled late last year—and Biden embraced them, along with the warm admiration they brought, in the wake of the death of his son, Beau—but ultimately, he announced in October he would not run. On The Late Show Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert asked Biden if he regrets his decision.

"I know I made the right decision for my family...Do I think I was best prepared, at this moment, to lead the country? I did. The issues of greatest concern were in my wheelhouse—things I've dealt with my whole career. So in that sense, I'm disappointed...But I don't regret the actual decision."

Such is the current what-iffing that a reporter asked Biden this week if he'd ever run for office again. "Yeah, I am. I'm going to run in 2020," he responded, and when asked for what position: "For president. What the hell, man."

Naturally, Colbert wanted clarification on that one as well:

It's hard to interpret this as anything but Biden leaving the door open for a run four years from now. "I'm a great respecter of fate," he told Colbert. "I don't plan on running again, but to say you know what's going to happen in four years, I just think is not rational."

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were historically unpopular candidates, and the solidifying consensus is that they both would have lost to virtually any other opponent. At the same time, Biden's approval ratings since last fall have been strong. Around the time he announced he wasn't running in October, he ticked up to 49 percent. He's hovered around 50 percent ever since, while Hillary Clinton landed at 41 percent this August and Donald Trump nose-dived to 35.

But, as Biden hinted last night, it's easy to stay popular if you stay out of the ring. "Boy, I learned," he told Colbert. "You want to become the most popular guy in America? Announce you're not running." This isn't just a Biden thing. While she was Secretary of State, ostensibly above the political fray, Hillary Clinton garnered approval ratings as high as 66 percent. It was only once she signaled her desire to run for president—and the Republican Party essentially re-declared war on her—that she crashed below 50 percent.

All this is to say that Biden's positive Uncle Joe vibes don't necessarily mean he would have swept the field in 2016. One of the main lines of attack on Clinton was that she was a card-carrying member of The Establishment, and represented the status quo in a change election. Biden, as a member of the current administration, was as much or more a symbol of that status quo. Moreover, Trump's victory as the least popular major-party candidate in history calls into question whether approval ratings matter much at all these days.

(Biden has also already run for president twice, in 1988—as documented by the late Esquire writer Richard Ben Cramer in the seminal What It Takes—and 2008, without gaining much traction.)

Regardless, the speculation about next time around will continue. "Never say never," Biden said last night. "You don't know what's going to happen. I mean, hell, Donald Trump's going to be 74. I'll be 77—in better shape." The vice-president remains a popular figure, particularly among his colleagues in the capital. The gesture from sworn enemy Mitch McConnell this week to name part of a bill dedicated to cancer research after the vice-president's son, Beau—who died of brain cancer last year—was proof of that.

But if this election is proof of anything, it's that kind words are temporary. Trump, after all, once praised Hillary Clinton as a great Secretary of State and public servant. There's no telling what will happen—or would have happened—in the heat of battle.

Nevertheless, this was a unique late-night moment, and Biden's second such news-making appearance on Colbert, with whom he seems to share a special bond. Biden was one of the Late Show host's first big interviews a little over a year ago, when they discussed death in their families. When Colbert was ten years old, his father and two of his brothers died in a plane crash. Along with his son last year, Biden lost his first wife and their one-year-old daughter in a 1972 car accident.

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